Facebook's Got Nothin' on Google

Let's face it: the tech world loves its corporate rivalries. In the
'90s it was Microsoft vs. Apple. In the aughts it was Microsoft vs.
Google. And now it's Google vs. Facebook. Increasingy, the social
network has been gaining ground on Google, surpassing the search giant
in page views and unique visitors and stealing away its top engineering talent. In July, Fortune declared "the search party over" citing the company's declining stock value and Facebook's meteoric rise.

With
so much publicity over Facebook and Google's battle for the Internet,
one would think Google's CEO would at least acknowledge the rivalry. Not so. In a
discussion with reporters Thursday, Schmidt brushed it off completely:

"We have a competitor called Microsoft (MSFT),"
he said. "Microsoft has more cash, more engineers, more global reach.
We see competition from Microsoft every day." Facebook, on the other
hand, "has clearly stated they don't want to get into the search
business. Facebook users tend to use Google search. Facebook's ads
business does not displace our advertising. I'm somewhat perplexed by
the obsession because I don't think the facts support it. Things are
going great for Google."

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

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